Following a new path: Bob Dennison heads to Albany as chief engineer

Albany — In Bob Dennison's words, his new job as chief engineer of the state Department of Transportation is "a topper" to a 33-year career.

Judy Rife

Albany — In Bob Dennison's words, his new job as chief engineer of the state Department of Transportation is "a topper" to a 33-year career.

It is also the No. 3 job in a department that Gov. Eliot Spitzer wants to transform into a national leader in smart growth, the evolving concept of weaning communities away from planning and zoning policies that create traffic rather than anticipate and accommodate it.

Dennison is on board. In fact, his early preaching of this gospel as the DOT's regional director in the Hudson Valley for the past eight years reportedly prompted Spitzer to shortlist him for the job.

"Let's just say the job of chief engineer is the only one I'd consider," said Dennison in declining to address the rumor directly. "It's a topper, a wonderful way to top off a career in engineering and public service. I'm a third-generation public servant, a third-generation DOT employee. It's the family business."

To effect the department's transformation, Spitzer ultimately selected Astrid Glynn as commissioner and Stan Gee as first deputy. Glynn and Gee bring decades of experience in transportation to Albany, Glynn most recently with the State of Massachusetts and Gee with the Federal Highway Administration.

Glynn, in turn, chose Dennison to run the DOT's sprawling engineering division, a job that includes supervising 3,500 civil engineers in 11 regional offices to deliver the department's capital program — $1.4 billion this year.

Dennison was a natural, Glynn said, pointing to "his standing among his peers in the engineering community "¦ and his ability to deliver difficult projects on time and within budget."

The decision to leave a job he loved, however, didn't come easily for Dennison, who has lived in the Hudson Valley since he was a child and worked close to home for most of his career.

"Regional director is a great job, and Region 8 (the Hudson Valley) is the biggest of the DOT regions with 1,000 people and lots of exciting projects," said Dennison. "But you're also involved in the direct delivery of the department's services to the public.

"In Albany, I won't be able to walk out of my office the way I did in Poughkeepsie and say 'Let's do this "¦' anymore; I'll have to work through other DOT people now. So the decision is bittersweet for me."

Despite this ambivalence, Dennison is excited about working with Glynn and Gee ("these guys are pros") to reshape the department. The DOT's engineers take policy and technical direction from the chief engineer and have little to no control over processes created in Albany.

"I think I can do some good, make some changes to bring the department forward, move it along," said Dennison. "Albany frequently suffers from a lack of regional experience, so I want to update some of our processes and I want to help the regions with resources."

He expects many of the challenges he confronts in Albany to mirror the ones he's faced in the Hudson Valley, albeit on a far greater scale.

The state, and its neighbors in the Northeast, have the nation's oldest highway networks because they were settled first. As a result, their DOTs are grappling with a changing paradigm, from building new to repairing and replacing old in a global economy where competition for such commonplace materials as steel has inflated costs and strained budgets.

"What's really new, where we're on the cutting edge, is how we build more than what we build," said Dennison. "How do we repair and replace in a cost-effective way that doesn't disrupt traffic for long periods of time? It's a huge problem today."

The challenges, however, come with the title of chief engineer, and Dennison welcomes them — along with the opportunity to return to his roots.

"I got into this business to be an engineer, so this is good; it brings me full circle," said Dennison. "Whenever I'd dabble in engineering in Poughkeepsie, the staff would accuse me of being self-indulgent."

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